


Yeah, Hey

by winter_rogue



Category: The Hobbit (2012) RPF
Genre: 500 Days of Summer AU, AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_rogue/pseuds/winter_rogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His name was Aidan Turner and he was in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> [kink meme fill](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/6124.html?thread=17078508#t17078508). Gratuitous 500 Days of Summer fill. 
> 
> First time writing any RPF at all. This is like, completely undiscovered country for me. I hope it isn't completely terrible. This first part follows the film structure pretty closely but I foresee the rest is going to be veering wildly out of control as we go along.
> 
> And because I apparently extra special hate myself, it's a wip! /o\ Un-beta'd and off the cuff, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not know these people, I obviously don't own them. No harm is intended with this story. It's just a bit of diversion.

The thing about Dean in that moment, in those five minutes when the sun stumbled out from behind London’s persistent cloud cover, was that he had been and remains the most beautiful thing Aidan Turner had ever seen. He was the sun, really. Still somehow tanned and blond and glowing for all that it was the middle of winter and freeze-your-nuts-off cold outside. 

And when he turned to look at Aidan, when he smiled, maybe it wasn’t exactly the same chorus of angels that opened up and suddenly struck up a heavenly hymn. Maybe it wasn’t quite the same gut punch tearing through him. The bone deep certainty that they were meant to be together. Rather it was tempered a little, by time and a fuller understanding of one another.

When he smiled, he ran his thumb across Aidan’s thumb, where their hands shored up together. And he was still golden, and lovely, even as the sun slunk back behind the clouds again.

(451)

# 

(001)

His name was Aidan Turner.

“Thanks Dean. Oh, everyone, this is my new PA, Dean O’Gorman. Dean, everyone.” Aidan’s boss, Senior Managing Directer Just-Call-Me-Peter, gestured between the editorial staff and the cheerful young man at his elbow. Dean smiled and tipped his head, took the stack of papers from Peter, and slipped back out of the meeting.

Aidan had to check and make sure his mouth wasn’t actually hanging open. Reassured he hadn’t started drooling, he sank back in his wobbly chair. Peter was talking in the background about advertising for the _Blood Moon_ release but he didn’t hear a word of it. 

 #

“How did you get into editing?” Dean asked. He’d angled his body so that their knees brushed every once in awhile. If anyone had asked, Aidan would claim he kept shivering because it was March and it was cold but really, it was one-hundred percent the knee thing.

“I have an English degree.”

Dean laughed. “Right, makes sense. You  like books.”

“I like books. I really like books, actually. I have an MLitt.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Postmodern English literature.” Aidan ducked his head, stared at the half eaten sandwich in his hands and tried not to blush or do anything stupid. Bad enough he’d started talking about university.

“Now it all makes sense.” Dean elbowed him and smiled when he looked up.

Feeling daring, “Well, to be honest, I wanted to write originally. But then I moved to London and it’s fucking expensive to stay in the city.”

“Are you any good?”

“At what?”

“At writing.”

“Fair, I suppose.” He stuffed the rest of his lunch back in its wrapper before it disintegrated between his fingers. “Don’t really have the time now. Or the inclination. You spend so many hours every day reading the slush pile. It all starts to look like slush.”

“That’s too bad.”

Aidan shrugged.

“What about you? What the hell enticed you to leave, uh—”

“Auckland.” Dean knocked their knees together again and shrugged. “Dunno, just bored, I guess.”

(066)

 #

(003)

“I think I’m in love.”

Russell rolled his eyes and shoved a cup of tea into his hands. In the kitchen, dishes clattered.

“What do you mean, you’re in love?” his friend demanded and hurled himself onto the touch.

Aidan juggled the tea to keep it from spilling.

“I mean— I mean exactly what I said. Love. You should see this guy.”

“Hot?” Lenora’s eager question heralded her arrival with the take away.

“Very. Blond, tanned, adorable accent.” 

Russell snorted.

“ _Sweet_.”

“And just who are we talking about?”

Aidan grinned and made room for Lenora on the sofa. “Dean.”

“His boss’s new assistant,” Russell added.

She laughed and doled out the cartons of food.

“Oh god, office romance. It’s either the most delicious thing ever or the absolute worst. Good for you Aid.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you ask him out already then?”

“He hasn’t even talked to him yet.”

“Aw.” She dug a sharp elbow into his side. “Better get on that.”

“He only met the bloke two days ago. In fact, he hasn’t even really met him at all!”

Aidan scowled at Russell and shoved a fork full of noodles into his mouth.

“I have.”

“No you haven’t.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I know you. You, my friend, are a mooner.”

Lenora sputtered. She had to set her food aside to laugh and stole Aidan’s tea in the process. “It’s so true.” Then she curled down into his side and grinned. “So when are you _going_ to talk to him?”

He sighed, rested his head against the top of her curly hair and kicked Russell when he made a gaggy-face.

“Soon. Tomorrow. I can’t tell you what it was like—”

“Yeah, yeah, blond, blue-eyed, gorgeous accent. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“You will,” Aidan said. They would. They’d see. He had a good feeling about this one.

 #

(066)

“Bored of the surf and sun and stunning landscapes, so you came here for the rain. I can see that.”

Dean laughed. It was light and surprisingly rough in his throat. It sent shivers straight down Aidan’s spine, like sharp, delicious fingertips. He thought for one crazy second that he’d do anything to cause Dean to make that noise again. That he’d hoard it and keep it tucked away just for himself. 

The moment didn’t pass.

“It’s so small, by comparison. There’s just so much _more_ here. I guess I just wanted a change. See a little bit more of the world.” He shoved the last bite of his own sandwich into his mouth and chewed. And even that was somehow charming to Aidan’s daft brain. “Not getting any younger either, you know? Gotta fit it all in.”

Aidan laughed and dared to bring their shoulders together. “The hell man, you’re hardly older than me.”

“Trust me, it all looks a little different after thirty.” Dean looked at him but the good humour in his eyes betrayed his tone. God, he even had dimples. There was no defense against it.

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Maybe. A little. But I think there’s some truth to it. I just want to make sure I’ve gotten out there and lived enough, you know?”

Right then, sitting flush against Dean’s side, Aidan thought he knew exactly what the other man meant.


	2. Some Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to say this at the beginning, tags and additional pairings are subject to addition and the rating will probably? go up.

(005)

“Can you give this to Peter?” Aidan held out the file folder, blue and just over and inch thick, held closed with a pink rubber band that strained against the pages. He waited for Dean— _Dean O’Gorman_ he whispered to himself gleefully—to look up. Hitched up on the toes of his shoes and waited but he didn’t look up.

Instead, Dean just held out a hand, never breaking his focus on whatever he had up on his laptop. He hummed a quiet confirmation when Aidan set the file in his hands and typed something with the other. Aidan hovered, but still, Dean didn’t look up and eventually he had to give up and retreated to his desk in the speculative slush office.

“I thought you were going to go get us coffee.”

“What?”

Adam, another assistant editor whose desk sat kitty corner to Aidan’s, made a ridiculous face up at him. The corners of his mouth pulled down and his rested his chin in the palm of his hands.

“Coffee? Mocha goodness. Remember?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, I asked, ‘Aidan where are you going?’ and you grunted at me and then I told you to go get me coffee and you nodded.”

Aidan blinked. “No I didn’t.” He collapsed into his chair, it squeaked under his weight. He could feel Adam watching him. He scowled a little. “What?”

“Nothing.” Adam spun in his chair. “So, no mocha?” And he grinned when Aidan gave up and stood again. 

“I’m not going alone, come on. Grab some work.” He chivvied Adam out of his chair and both of them out of the office.

Adam linked their arms together, “Let me guess, Dean didn’t fall all over himself to notice you?”

Aidan’s mouth dropped open and he sucked in a sharp breath to protest.

“You’re wearing your nice shirt,” Adam smoothed a long, narrow hand down the other man’s chest.

Aidan brushed his hand off of him and tried not to blush.

“Stop it.”

Adam laughed. They had to walk past Peter’s office to get to the elevator and Dean was still there, typing slowly. Aidan tried to speed them past but Adam clamped his arm down tight together and slowed his steps. He paused and turned them around.

“Dean, isn’t it?”

The blond’s typing paused and he looked up.

“Yes?”

“We’re going for coffees, you want anything?”

“Oh, wow, yeah. A long dark, black, would be great.”

Aidan felt frozen in place. He couldn't quite raise his eye to look at Dean even though he could feel Adam digging a painful little elbow right into his floating ribs.

“A what?” Adam chirped.

“Espresso and water? I guess you probably call it something else.”

“Americano,” Aidan mumbled.

“What was that, _Aidan_?”

He glared at Adam’s triumphant face and cleared his throat. When he looked up, he met Dean’s bright blue eyes. The other man smiled at him, right at him and the world started spinning around him.

“I’ll trust you. Thanks.”

Aidan nodded stupidly and tripped over his own feet following Adam down the hallway.

“You are totally hopeless. It’s a good thing you’re so pretty,” his friend teased.

“Oh god.” They stepped onto the elevator and the doors closed. Adam stopped laughing at him eventually.

 #

On April fools, Dean woke him up from a sound, somewhat drunken slumber with a glass of cold water to the face. Aidan sputtered and choked and tackled the giggling kiwi to the bed.

“You are going to pay for that.”

“Oh yeah? Big words.”

He held the smaller man down in the wet spot and shook his long, curly hair in his face until Dean protested. His laugh never quite disappearing. And afterwards he kissed him. Held his arms down at the wrists, pressed their bodies together in the weak London sunlight and kissed him until his lips were wet and tingling and they were both short of breath.

(201)

 #

(200)

“Babe, I hate to tell you this, but you are completely hammered.”

“‘M not.”

The world spun underneath Aidan but he landed on something soft and warm so he decided not to worry about it. Greedy hands brought Dean down with him. He rutted sort of absently up into the other man’s warm body while he tried to get the both of them out of their clothes.

“I really, really like you,” Aidan murmured into what he thought was Dean’s ear.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean’s voice rumbled through their chests, a soft, amused burr of sound.

“Mmhmm, could eat you up.” And he licked whichever body part was nearest him, possibly an earlobe, but might as well have been an elbow to Aid’s booze addled brain. He lifted his hips up and let his partner work his tight jeans off his legs and hummed softly at the ceiling. Life was beautiful, Dean was beautiful. He reached out a jerky, uncoordinated hand and ran long fingers through Dean’s mussed blond hair, gripped it. Fell asleep somewhere in the middle of describing exactly what he wanted to do to the other man.

# 

Wait, hold on, I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea about this story.

 #

(261)

They were sitting in a chip shop at the beginning of June. This in itself was not unusual, when Dean pushed aside his water glass and said:

“I think it’d be best if we gave each other a little space.”

“What?” Aidan said while everything in the background screeched to a halt. “What do you mean?”

Dean waited while  their waitress set down two plates of breakfast: beans, sausages, toast, it was all hideously predictable but Aidan had always looked at it in a kind of domestic light. Comforting, solid. A good thing that they enjoyed on early Saturday morning. Now the plate of grease made his stomach churn.

Dean wasn’t looking at him. Not directly.

“Space. It just seems like we’ve been living in one another’s pockets lately, doesn’t it?” And the thing was, he sounded totally sincere. Aidan watched him slice up his sausages into four perfectly sized pieces, spear two on the tines of his fork, run them through the beans and into his mouth. Followed by a nibbly bite of toast and washed down with a sip from his coffee— an americano, or whatever he called it, black because Dean wouldn’t just drink tea with breakfast. He knew all of these things, they were familiar.

And, all right, maybe Dean had a point about all the time they’d been spending together but Aidan was hard pressed to see it as a bad thing,

“I don’t see that as a bad thing.” He smiled, but it was weak and for once Dean didn’t smile back. “Do you?”

“A bit, maybe.” Dean kept eating, like it was a task he had to get through. Like this conversation. Aidan sort of wanted to pitch every dish between them to the floor and scream.

“Don’t get me wrong,” the other man continued, “you’re great, you’re like my best mate in this city. And the sex is top notch. I just, Christ—I just don’t think we need to spend every waking hour together. Do you? When was the last time you even saw Russell, eh?” 

“But I love _you_.”

For Aidan that was all the explanation in the world but it made Dean drop his fork with a loud clang. He laughed but it sounded stilted and horrible and nothing like the laugh Aidan loved.

“What? What do you mean you— You don’t love me, Aidan.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“I think I know my own mind about it, thanks!” he gulped down half of his cold tea and tried not to outright glare at Dean’s pinched expression. He didn't understand what all the fuss was about. This is what people did, they met and fell in love and did things together— dating, okay, it’s called dating— and then they eventually got a place and spent the rest of their lives. Together. Where was the confusion?

Dean sighed and looked at Aidan in the too-bright shop lights with— fuck, it wasn’t _pity_ okay. After a tense moment he reached out and took Aidan’s hand.

“You don’t, trust me. We just need some space. Get a little perspective. I’ll— uh, I’ll call you, okay?” he patted him on the shoulder. Took out a couple crumpled bills, enough to cover breakfast, and walked out. Aidan stared blindly at his empty seat for a long time and wondered what the hell had just happened.


	3. Beginnings take a while

(053)

The funny thing about life was that it always seemed to slip away. Instant gut punch, head first plunge into icy water feeling or not, he still had work to get done and groceries to buy, deadlines and bills and calls from his mother to return on Sundays.

The world didn’t actually stop so he could devote all his attention to mooning over Dean and whispered debates with Adam about the best ways to get the Kiwi to come out with him.

Six weeks flew by and when Aidan looked up again it was a week until Christmas and the whole office was buried under gaudy tinsel and evergreen decorations while they handled end of the year advertising schemes and scrambled to prepare a book launch for the first of January.

At the other desk, Adam kept typing out texts with increasingly vigorous speed. He scowled. Aidan watched him without really seeing him, too tired from staring at commas on proof pages to go back to work. Someone knocked on their open office door and Adam threw his phone onto his desk with a huff. He swiveled around and immediately straightened at whatever he saw, kicked Aidan’s chair until he came out of his trance.

“Christ, stop okay,” he grumbled. Aidan looked over and was painfully reminded of the fact he hadn’t actually showered before work that morning. Had, in fact, pulled on the first tee and flannel combo he’d found not actually lying on his bedroom floor and stuck a grubby knit cap on his head rather than pull a brush through his hair. He looked a right mess but there was nothing to do about that now.

“Hey,” Dean greeted them, hands tucked into his crisp, turquoise jeans. He was a soft casual line in blue cashmere leaning against the door jamb. “Peter wanted to know if you’re done with the galleys for, uh, _A Dragon Prince_?”

Aidan cleared his throat and resisted the urge to pull his beanie down over his eyes and smother himself in the stack of papers at his elbow. Instead, he started shifting through his work until he found the correct stack of printouts. It was a bit old fashioned to work from hard copies but he’d never quite squashed his love of pen on paper. Nothing like watching the loops from his own hand expand across the page. Even if it was just to tell someone to stop using so many fucking adjectives already.

Movement out of the corner of his eye revealed Dean standing a lot closer. He smelled sweet like peppermint and sort of chocolately. Aidan wondered, as the manuscript changed hands, if his mouth would taste like Fran’s infamous December cocoa.

Adam made a loud, strangled noise he buried in a cough. But it was enough to bring Aidan’s thoughts back to the moment. He flushed.

“So, you going to the holiday party?” Dean asked. Still standing close.

Beneath their desks, Adam kicked him in the shin none too gently. Adam liked to deceive people with that soft angelic face of his, but he was really a violent fucker once you had to work with him every day.

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” Aidan hedged. What a fucking lie.

“Don’t listen to him,” Adam piped up. “Everyone’s going, even Aidan here. Even if I have to drag him away from his books by his shirttails.” He kicked Aidan’s other shin, so he was distracted enough scowling at his co-worker he missed Dean’s little smirk.

“So, I’ll see you there then.” The blond tucked the galleys under his arm and disappeared.

“Will you stop kicking me? I am perfectly able to talk for myself.”

“Please, that is such a lie. And I’m tired of watching you try not to moon too obviously.”

“Oh, my god,” Aidan threw up his hands, “I do not moon!”

The other man’s phone buzzed, interrupting whatever retort he was going to make.

“As much as I enjoy listening to you try to delude yourself, ive got to go down and yell at someone in art. Later.”

Aidan kicked at the empty computer chair for awhile after Adam left. He was not sulking, okay, he was just thinking about the best way to get Dean under the mistletoe at the company party. That was a thing people still did, right?

 #

Aidan hadn’t felt like coming but Peter insisted. This was the first book he’d seen from query to print to Booker short list (if the rumours were to be trusted and Peter insisted that they were). It was a crowning achievement for author and editor alike. A party for him as much as McTavish. So, here he was, washed and pressed into his only nice suit with a glass of champagne clutched in his white knuckled fist.

He’d been looking for Graham for the last quarter of an hour. He was a good guy, a brilliant writer and Aidan had enjoyed working with him. His book had come along just when everything else seemed to be falling apart. A welcome distraction. 

Seemed the thing to do, shake his hand and congratulate him on the news. Besides that, he had a few questions to ask about plans for a follow-up book. It was time Aidan started looking forward instead of dwelling on—well, dwelling in general.

A clutch of people parted in front of him and Aidan headed for where he could see Graham’s sturdy shoulders above the crowd. He caught Adam’s wide eyes across the room and smiled tightly. He couldn’t translate the tight line of his friend’s mouth.

He reached out to get Graham’s attention when the man shifted, just enough, and Aidan froze. He could have swore his heart stopped—what a fucking cliche—and he watched the other man lean down, one broad hand cupping a familiar blond head, into an easy kiss, sweet and unashamed. And Dean smiled into his mouth.

Aidan ducked away and forced his lungs to start breathing again, raggedly. Hurried to disappear before either of them could note his aborted approach.

(300)


	4. A bit of awhile, actually

(057)

“The good news is you didn’t do anything to feel embarrassed about. No singing, no vomit, no egregious inebriated come-ons,” Adam’s voice said through his phone’s little speakerphone.

Aidan scrubbed both hands back through his hair, viciously tugged at curls and threw his body back into the sheets.

“But.”

“But,” Adam’s breath a quiet sigh in the otherwise empty room, in the quiet house, Russell having gone off to brunch with his girlfriend already. “Nothing happened either. Nothing memorably at least.”

“I gave him something to drink.”

“And then you let Peter drag us into what amounted to a copy meeting. Thanks for that by the way. You’re really terrible at this, you know? I thought it was sort of adorable at first but I also thought you’d get over it by now.”

“Over what? Dean?”

“Or that.”

Aidan growled softly and grabbed his phone off the side table.

“Adam—”

“Sorry,” he interrupted. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got a long weekend. Come back strong after the new year. It’s stupid anyways, Christmas romance, what bollocks.” He laughed but to Aidan it sounded more pitying than anything else. He sighed.

“Did you decide about lunch?” 

“Yeah, I’ll come round about two with dessert if that works?”

“Sounds fine. Hey, you’re a good friend you know that?”

Adam laughed softly.

“I’m serious, mate. And I promise, no more whinging about it.”

“Sure, Aid, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 #

(089)

They might have stayed like that. Perpetually revolving around one another. Or, more accurately, Aidan revolving around Dean, his heart fit to burst every time the other man deemed to turn his way and smile.

Then again, sometimes a boy— a _man_ , spends one too many nights watching _Bridget Jones_ on the telly and has to take real stock of his life choices.

“This is pathetic,” Russell told him near the end of January. And of course, it was true.

“Do you want to grab coffees?” he asked the next day around lunch. 

“What, now?”

Aidan fiddled with his phone, tapping it against his leg in a jittery rhythm. 

“Or later, whichever. Just, coffee.”

Dean gave him a long look, pursed his lips, but in the end he nodded and said, “Alright. Early lunch? If you want.”

“Great, wonderful.” Aidan bit down on his overwhelming urge to be sick with nervous energy. He jerked a finger back towards his office, “I should go get some work done then. Eleven?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t think it was his imagination, the feel of the other man’s eyes on his back all the way down the hall.

 #

People seemed to spend a lot of time laughing at Aidan’s hopelessness but he thought it was kind of nice when it was Dean. 

Dean who had drunk coffee and asked him questions about the awful manuscripts he’d been reading that week and come home with him. Eaten Lenora’s attempt at baked mac’n’cheese and drunk the shitty beer Russell always bought for the house. Who buried himself on the sofa and put his feet up in Aidan’s lap without asking permission and flicked the channel away from the fourth night of _Birdget Jones_.

After a minute Dean shifts around, digs a DVD case out of the sofa cushion behind him and frowns at _Hot Fuzz_ , “Why don’t we just watch this? I can never make sense of the tv schedule.” And Aidan grins, plucks the case away from him and puts it in the player. When he sits down again, Dean’s feet migrate back into his space like they belong there. He thinks that they do.

“You shouldn’t be so nervous.”

“What?” Aidan looked at the other man askance.

“It’s just a bit of fun, right? Relax.”

“I am relaxed,” he laughed. He had Dean in his home, on the sofa; touching, there was sofa touching. And lunch and dinner, both of which had gone off without a hitch. 

“Right,” Dean said and poked him with his foot. Aidan grabbed the offending appendage and held it against his thigh. Dean smiled in the dim lit room, his eyes on Aidan’s face. “Good, just so we’re on the same page.”

(089)

 #

(125)

“So, what are you guys doing for Valentines Day?” Lenora asks over breakfast. She puts tea down in front of Aidan and keeps a cup for herself and ignores the way Russell grumbles. “Shut it, if you’re going to criticize the way I make tea, then you can make it yourself.” And Aidan had to smother a laugh in his cereal.

She turns back to him and arches a dark eyebrow. “Well?”

“We aren’t, Dean’s out of town.”

Both of her eyebrows inched up towards her hairline and she looked like she wanted desperately to ask another question. She didn’t though and neither did Russell which was even more suspicious, perhaps. Aidan shoveled the last bite of toast crunch into his mouth and stood. It didn’t mean anything, despite what her face said.

“We’ll do something next week, I’m sure. Besides, who actually _does_ Valentines anymore? Seems kind of gauche don’t you think?”

Lenora narrowed her eyes, bit her tongue and looked like she was considering it.

“You could make that argument,” she conceded. Russell snorted and jumped when she kicked him in the shin.

“Rude.”

She stuck her tongue out him. Aidan rolled his eyes, stole the Arts section out of the paper and went to work.

 #

(089) 

“Thanks for dinner.” Dean paused on the stoop to look up at him, hallowed by the stoop light in the gloom.

Aidan laughed without really meaning to, his mouth pulled wide enough to show his teeth so that he ducked his head. Firm, warm fingers tapped the side of his jaw and he looked up through his eyelashes at the way Dean ducked to catch his eyes.

“I like that,” he said.

“What?”

“The sound, you should laugh more.” Dean’s other hand reached out, ran softly up Aidan’s side, wrinkling his worn cotton shirt and splayed warm across his collarbone. Easy, so so easy, he craned his neck up just enough to bring their mouths together. Lightly chapped lips pressed firmly against his mouth, coaxing his mouth into an eager kiss before Dean stepped away again.

“I’ll see ya,” he smirked and waved over his shoulder.

Aidan closed the door and collapsed back on it. He stayed there for awhile, just to enjoy the swoop and fall of his stomach and the stretch from the grin on his face.


	5. Things are supposed to happen in the middle

(102)

“God how can you drink this?” Aidan grimaced and handed the cup back.

Dean took it and sipped it, happy enough with the taste apparently.

“What? I’ll give you it’s a bit of an acquired taste but—”

“It’s horrible. I’ve never seen the appeal.”

“Well, there’s the rush for one thing. That first hit of caffeine in the morning.”

“Nothing a strong cup of tea can’t accomplish.”

His companion laughed, threw back his head and just laughed. It was like sunshine in the middle of January.

“Hardly.”

Aidan wrinkled his nose, joking affront. 

Dean held up a placating hand. “No offense intended. Honestly.” 

He sprawled back in his chair, spread his legs beneath the cramped cafe table until they were all tangled up. It was a constant surprise, the way Dean could just inhabit a space, fill up all the corners until he was all Aidan could see.

“I spent a semester in America actually,” Dean said after a couple minutes of companionable silence. “That’s where I picked up a taste for it. Starbucks on every corner you know, it’s pretty inescapable.”

“America? Really?”

He shrugs, sips and smiles over the steam rising from his cup.

“I went to uni, yeah.”

“No, that’s not what I— I didn’t mean to imply—” Aidan frowned. 

“It was this really odd liberal arts college, Evergreen. Tiny, in this tiny town on the Puget Sound.”

“What were you there for?”

“Enviro studies. They’re really focused on interdisciplinary studies so it turned out more like the intersections between environmental awareness and queer theory. Or something. I let sort of more confused then I was going in. But it was fun. They smoke a lot of weed there, if nothing else.”

“Oh.”

“It was in this town though. Very socially conscious, compost bins in every restaurant, buy local signs in all the windows. Real hippy central. And just south of the birthplace of Starbucks So you can imagine.”

“Coffee on every corner, right.” He could only try and imagine it. London was as far from home he’d ever managed. And it was a big city, lots of pockets of subculture.

“Rained all the time there too. London reminds me a bit of it actually.” 

“Oh?”

Dean slid their knees more firmly together and smirked across the small, intimate space. 

“London’s got it’s own charms though, I must admit.”

Aidan coughed to cover his urge to blush and looked away. But he didn’t hesitate to push into the warmth bleeding through Dean’s jeans. Pleased.

 #

(136)

They weren’t doing anything obvious like holding hands or some rubbish like that. But Aidan couldn’t keep the smile off his face as they browsed the tables of used books side by side. It was a surprisingly nice day for the beginning of May. Cool but not too biting, bright if not exactly sunny, and the skies held off trying to get in a last spring shower.

He reached out from time to time just run a casual hand down Dean’s back. To make sure they didn’t get separated in the crowd. For his part, Dean leaned back into the contact, imperceptibly. Ran one hand across the cracked spines and mouthed the titles silently to himself. Somehow, he’d held on to the last of his summer tan, skin a soft warm colour in the grey London light.

Aidan bumped into his back when Dean paused. He pulled a book out of the pile, just enough to see the cover and he seemed to waver over it.

“Bronte?” Aidan asked. He leaned closer until they were almost touching back to front. Dean was warm.

The smaller man shrugged a little and pushed the book back down until it was flush with the rest and kept walking.

 #

Aidan’s bedroom overlooked the back garden from the second floor. It was a pretty enough view, only partially obscured by a craggy oak tree growing on the edge of the property and East facing. It got a bit of light in the morning without ever getting too hot or stifling.

In the afternoon they lay head to foot on his double squeezed into the small room alongside an antique desk and dresser set. Dean’s eyes followed the shadows cast by the tree as they shift and rustled across the white stucco ceiling and Aidan watched Dean, propped up on one elbow.

“Is that where you write?” Dean asked out of the blue.

“What?” Aidan blinked, coming back to the present. 

The other man flung out a lethargic arm at the desk. It was dark paneled wood, scuffed and banged up from too many moves and covered in piles of paper.

“Oh.” Aidan couldn’t help but see the layer of dust covering the papers. How there wasn’t even a place to set a laptop on the top anymore. The books piled up on the seat, copies of projects he’d worked on for Peter.

He rolled onto his back.

“Oh, no. Not in a long time.”

(141)

 #

Mostly we live our lives in all the spaces between other people. As much time and energy we devote to being hung-up on relationships and finding love, and being in love and falling out of love, in the end we’re all alone. And love, sex, relationships: all of these things we chase, are really just attempts at forgetting that fact. Are really just attempts at closing the spaces that we can never quite succeed in blotting out with _stuff_.

It didn’t do any good saying he was tired of being alone. Or sitting around in his shorts eating crisps and letting Lenora make him pity tea while the television droned in the background, feeling alone.

You couldn’t expect another person to love you just because you loved them. It was this realization, he found, to be the bitterest pill to swallow.

And you couldn’t sit around waiting for the next person to show up that you’d think to yourself, “maybe I could paste them down long enough to fill up some white space.”

Aidan rubbed at the ache in his chest, catalogued the heavy cotton sensation in his head, rubbed the thick fleshy part of his tongue around his teeth and grimaced at the taste. He felt, not sad exactly, though there was sadness lurking in the back of his mind, but rather irritated with himself. This was disgusting. This had to stop.

 

“Do you hear the water running?” Lenora cocked her head and listened. Russell depressed the button on the toaster and paused.

“Fucking finally,” he said. Then went back to making the tea.

She smiled.

(400)


End file.
